looking away
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: A long time ago, Sei told Rei a story about a woman, trying to tell Rei something he couldn't admit to himself...


Disclaimer: Yui doesn't own Mars. Shiina Ringo produced the insert story below as well as the theme song for 'Stem'.  
  
Looking away  
  
by miyamoto yui  
  
"Stay with me," I told him as he stood by the doorway impatiently, looking out because he needed to go on a date. He was folding his arms and when he looked away from me with this impatience, I felt so small.   
  
He didn't mean it, but there he stood in front of me with this look with no regard to these words that I had uttered out of desparation to keep him beside me. Instead, it had turned against me.   
  
These were the words that would make him stop whatever he was doing and stay with me. I didn't know if it was out of guilt or the bond that we had, but it was all mixed up inside of me. Some kind of multi-colored yarn in which the colors came from all different sources. If I tried to move, they would cut me like piano strings because they would hurt so much with their clean, yet deadly touch.  
  
Rei turned his head to me while sighing aloud and finally closed the door as I watched him come next to me. When he sat down, I put my head on his shoulder for support. He was the one closest to me, and yet he was the one who pushed me so far away from him too. This false support would only last so much and I would break.  
  
I wouldn't have you forever, Rei.  
  
I don't think I can live with that.  
  
Listen to me…  
  
Listen to me and love me as you used to.  
  
But like all the times that I asked him to stay by my side have all been met with frustrated silence. And his touch becomes colder and colder, touching me so much that my heart has also been affected by this mysterious disease.  
  
A poison infecting me and making me even more withdrawn than I already am.  
  
The light was on, but I closed my eyes to the darkness already enveloping me.  
  
"What do you see with all these pictures, Rei?" I asked while breathing deeply. I was trying to remember the moment.  
  
Trying so hard to pretend that I was the gentle one, when I was deceiving even myself with my kind ways because I saw Rei do all the things that I wanted to do instead.  
  
"We just have the same face," he answered and if he had replied to someone else with the same question, they wouldn't understand.  
  
Only we knew what that meant with that single answer, but we couldn't understand each other also. Deep within us, he was angry and I was alone and scared.  
  
"The face is truly only one, isn't it?" I told him as I kept my eyes closed. Denying reality and yet forcing us through it at the same time.  
  
I didn't know what to say really. I had so many things to say and not any way to tell them. Only my silence made any sense to him because my words always confused him.  
  
And then he would get aggravated at the fact that he couldn't understand when he inherently did.  
  
"I want to tell you a story." I patted his hand and then let go. "It won't take much of your time."  
  
My moods were as unbalanced as they could be. So violently quiet and yet so demanding of him with gentleness.  
  
He just nodded his head at me with a calm face, except I could through him so easily. How he didn't want to hear me anymore.  
  
I always wanted to know how he ran out of care for me…  
  
Maybe while I watched him, I painted to keep him next to me while he acted on the emotions that I couldn't express. And all the while, I was the one providing all the love spread between both of us.  
  
"There was once a woman who was an actress. A man was looking for her and asked an investigator to find this woman, especially her real name. A beautiful woman in a photograph.  
  
"The investigator took the job and found this strange woman who lived in a house and was very kind to him. But when they talked, she looked too ideal. Going to her became like a dream and the more he went, he lost touch with reality. This was the same man who had said he didn't believe in performances of stars and the like was being suckered in so slowly by this hole in the back of the woman's house.   
  
"Like a voyeur, the investigator would check on the woman from this hole as she picked on the ear of man. But one day, the investigator took the ear picker and the woman, hauntingly said please give it back.  
  
"It was a surprise to him because the woman he met in the front everyday was proper and well-dressed, while the woman in the back was wearing a red kimono like a geisha. The only thing connecting them was that the woman said she lived alone, so it had to be her in both instances.  
  
"It came time to bring her to the man who was looking for her. But he couldn't bring her to the man. The investigator asked for the name of the woman and she put the question up in the air as if it was up to him. He had to decide what to call her. 'Call me by my real name,' she asked, but all he said was 'Katsuragi Kaede.' The stage name he had been given in the first place.  
  
"In the end she left because it was assumed that he chose the actress. The investigator went to the back to check for the woman, but all he saw was a photograph."  
  
"What is the point to this, Sei?" Rei asked me as he turned his head towards me, but I looked up to his face with a sad smile.  
  
"Is it so awful to know the truth? Why did he choose the photograph?" I asked him while still trying to figure out the confusing story.  
  
"People like pictures sometimes better than what's in front of them," Rei answered me. It was the answer I hoped he would give.  
  
"But what about the woman who wanted to see if it would be this person who would finally see her as she was?" I questioned as I kept my eyes on him as he turned away from me, facing in front of him and staring at the sketch of his own profile that I had made only a few weeks ago.  
  
"What a sad woman. She had to ask other people this question," Rei said with such a sarcastic tone that I felt like he was saying it to me. To hurt me more and more, but knowing exactly where to hit since we were basically the same.  
  
The wound he would incur on himself would become mine, but he wouldn't take my hurt with him.  
  
It would only remain mine.  
  
"I paint you because you see reality for me." I then got up and went to the middle of the room. "People may see me as a perfect child, but that's only because they can compare me to you."  
  
I looked at him as he still sat on the side of my bed. "If they only saw me, I don't think I could handle at that. The scrutiny of having people look at me."  
  
When I didn't even know myself.  
  
And the person I loved the most…  
  
Was the one who wouldn't care…  
  
Isn't that ironic?  
  
It was then that I gave him a cd. "Just listen to this once and keep if it if you want. Thanks for listening to me."  
  
As he got up to leave, I grabbed his hand trying to feel him and figure him out. Trying to find myself in his eyes.  
  
He was the only one I saw all these years and looking away would be so hard…  
  
"Looking away would kill me…" I whispered to myself.  
  
He closed the door, but before he did, he saw me getting a canvas. I was staring at its whiteness and I wanted to destroy it.  
  
My soul was ruined with my fingers…  
  
I was too honest with these pictures…  
  
--  
  
"Sei?" Rei got up in the middle of the night and looked out the window at the moon that was shining brightly through the darkness.  
  
He didn't understand if it was a nightmare or a dream…  
  
Just now, he had been inside his brother's mind…  
  
And it didn't make him cry or sad. It just made him quiet even to his own feelings.  
  
He didn't know how to feel as he looked around, wondering if he was still dreaming.  
  
And there was the cd staring back at him, on the floor next to a cd player. He reached out to it and put the earphones on and listened to the same song that Sei had asked him to pay attention to many years ago.  
  
Closing his eyes, he listened to the woman's beautiful, yet haunting voice:  
  
"There's a door here, but it will not break  
  
There's a stone there, but it won't remain  
  
Up there a heaven now, but it will not wait  
  
And the lies there, the scent of it, just too much  
  
So should you.  
  
Sow it once and make it grow, the sweet clematis  
  
Let it flower, and paint it all the colors bold  
  
Instantly things, fall and fade, return to silence  
  
Why, oh why, why does it all feel so sorrowful?  
  
Dreams of what is real  
  
There's a breath here, but it will not break  
  
There's a face there, but it won't remain  
  
Up there's a heaven now, but it knows no name  
  
And the stain is the color of red through red  
  
And though,  
  
You cannot cry, confuse the lies, try to remember  
  
When you rise, you take your steps with a strong desire  
  
Time goes by, a breath it comes, like something given  
  
Why oh why, why have these nightmares not long expired  
  
The real is but a dream  
  
From now on,  
  
Should I grow and open full, the sweet clematis  
  
Flower bold, but there's no need for rejoicing more  
  
Precious life, this life, just once, it comes just one time  
  
Keep it close, keep it from ever just leaving you  
  
Crying tears confusing fears they are no longer  
  
When I stand I know I'll never be down again  
  
Nothing that I need now, once it comes just one time  
  
Somehow, somehow, someone, ah  
  
Entry Number One."  
  
Rei kept his eyes closed as he put the cd to repeat the song over and over to fall back asleep to it. As sad as it was, he was mad at the fact that he was trying hard to understand.  
  
But he still couldn't grasp it, even though he couldn't breathe from it.  
  
The more he wanted to comprehend Sei,  
  
The more he couldn't…  
  
The only thing that would surface was that Sei's fear had eaten both of their souls. This song only pointed to one thing for Rei no matter how much he wanted to look away.  
  
It would all equal to Sei's whisper, who had thought Rei wasn't listening, with a straight, honest face that was only confident when he said,  
  
"Looking away would kill me."  
  
Rei remembered Sei glancing back at him as he closed the door. A chill had gone through Rei's bones as Sei said to him without mercy as if his real emotions were finally coming out and an incomprehensible smile,  
  
"Looking away will kill you."  
  
Owari.  
  
--  
  
Author's note: I know it's a weird fic, but it was something bugging me and so I had to write it. 


End file.
